Jen’s Book Nook

This season having started so late is really killing my morale. Then my garden gives me something to be proud of:

I swear, that heat wave we had was going to kill my beans off. But Nature is giving me a chance 😮‍💨🙏 Last year, my snap peas got burned that what was it. Everything is finally coming in.

My squash are suffering though and I think it’s because we haven’t had as many bees around. Part of that, for me I feel, is all that rain we had a couple months ago. Then cooler weather prevented a lot of flowers to grow when they should have. I did leave some carrots in ground to bolt so that helped. But I don’t think it’s enough and my dreams of being that neighbor that yeets zucchini at others is not happening this year.

This year, out of sheer opportunity, I planted some pantry potatoes. No clue on variety or if they were organic or mass produced, I just took what started showing growth and planted them 🤷‍♀️ Commercial potatoes are treated to stunt that growth to be sold in stores. So yes, I took that risk because having free potatoes is awesome.

I may have gathered a little sooner than I should have, but the plants looked like they were dying. I was already really sweaty from starting more seeds in pots and it felt about time. Am I surprised that I had such a little yield? Not at all. Not knowing what the background is for the ones I planted, I’m happy I got any potatoes at all.

I’m planning to keep doing this but, I think I will try in my garden beds. My ground is pretty dense. It’s OG soil that came with the house so it is very good for the weeds and things that Nature planted 😂😂😂 So I’ll just see. I can still plant in ground but fix the ground some or put in a garden bed and monitor them.

Next year, I definitely plan to either buy seed potato from a site I know sells good seeds. Or buy a bag of organic potatoes from Whole Foods or some place like that.

As for the remaining potato plants I have in ground, I’m leaving them till the plant itself is just about dead and see how those come out.

Until the next gardening update! 👋 Have a great week!